DL20g9 hangs on boot if Huawei E3372 4G USB "surfstick" is connected

[TobiasKlausmann]

As the subject says. Firmware etc. are all up-to-date.

Things I've tried:

• Change boot order so the HDD is tried first
• UEFI and Legacy boot mode

Disabling USB booting entirely might work but is not an option since Remote Media will then stop working.

Sometimes, the BIOS will hang so badly that even a reset via the iLO does not bring the machine back. A cold boot through iLO will work, however.

The stick itself works just fine in my workstation, including during reboots. I have tried several of these sticks, so I am sure this is not just one broken stick.

While it may well be that it's Huawei's fault, it still shouldn't completely break booting on the dl20g9, IMO.

[Jimmy Vance]

While I'm not familiar with that device, at what point durong POST / Boot does it hang?  Anything displayed on the screen?

[TobiasKlausmann]

In legacy boot mode, after seeing the AHCI SATA controller doing its "spinning" thing, there follows a cleared screen with a plain text prompt with two lines (paraphrased):

• F9 System utilities
• F11 Boot options

Then, about 1s later, either the OS boots or, in the case of one-time boot device selection, a list of ~10 options shows up.

The hang occurs after the AHCI message. The screen blanks and I get a blinking cursor, but that's it. The F9/F11 prompt never appears. The iLO remote console claims the POST code 78E3 as mentioned.

[TobiasKlausmann]

I have talked to HPE support about this. Currently there is one solution:

• Switch the machine to UEFI mode
• Go to the UEFI Advanced Boot options
• Remove the offending device from the UEFI boot order

This has the downside that we have to use UEFI mode (most of our tooling assumes BIOS mode), but we can make it work. I've also asked if there is a way to blackliste USB devices in Legacy/BIOS mode but not heard back yet.

[Jimmy Vance]

Glad you found a workaround.  Just to add to the conversation. Keep in mind Legacy BIOS is an emulation mode, the system is still UEFI.  UEFI and BIOS are types of firmware, a system has one or the other